Ridley Scott has been playing it fast and loose with details surrounding the prequel(s) of his infamous Alien series. Talking to MTV last week about the film, now in early development, Scott revealed some rather juicy bits of info about his pet project:

“It’s set in 2085, about 30 years before Sigourney [Weaver’s character Ellen Ripley]… It’s fundamentally about going out to find out ‘Who the hell was that Space Jockey?’ The guy who was sitting in the chair in the alien vehicle — there was a giant fellow sitting in a seat on what looked to be either a piece of technology or an astronomer’s chair. Remember that?”

Scott goes on to reveal even more about his plans, citing specifically the intention of having a female lead, the returning presence of the dread Weyland-Yutani Corporation (minus Yutani; apparently those two don’t become chummy until later), and having the plot revolve around the terraforming of desolate planets. But perhaps most intriguing of all is Scott’s desire to re-design the Xenomorphs with the aide of original designer H.R. Giger. Says Scott:

“Yeah, [Giger is] still around. Once I get more serious and get going, and the big wheels start turning, we’ll certainly talk. And maybe we’ll come up with something completely different.”

If that weren’t enough to whet your appetite, not two days later did Scott continue to drop bombs in an interview with Collider. Among the dank nugs of intel were talks of breaking the prequel up into two films, with the second tying almost directly into the ’79 original, as well as keeping the tone cold and brooding a lá Scott’s 70’s sensibility, and the very real possibility of making the films in 3D (bad idea in my opinion, but then again I don’t make bank producing movies).

While I feel that prequels generally break a cardinal rule by unnecessarily answering things better left unanswered (who gives a fig where the Death Star blueprints were stored?), I’m still excited about this one.

Like this post? Grab our feed for your iGoogle page or RSS reader or whatever. Or read our posts in our daily e-mail.